


The Groundwork of Disapprobation

by PercificRim



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, except i care infinitely more about the p&p canon than the pr canon and it shows, herm has trust issues, herm is darcy bc he deserves it, it's gonna get angsty folks, it's p&p set in the pacific rim universe, mako and raleigh r jane and bingley but in a quasi-platonic life partners kind of way, newt has bpd, pride and prejudice au, self-destructive behavious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-01-16 03:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PercificRim/pseuds/PercificRim
Summary: pride and prejudice. but it's pacific rim. hermann needs to swallow his pride, and newt needs to learn to move past first impressions.





	1. it's chapter one and newt is a mess

**Author's Note:**

> y'all don't even know how hyped i am for this i have the WHOLE thing planned out. we're in for a ride, folks

 

Newton Geiszler is a lot of things, but morning person is not one of them.

Zoning out of what is a doubtlessly pointless briefing, Newt lets his eyes trail around the room, idly noting the dust particles illuminated by the morning sun streaking through the window. They are hard not to notice; the briefing room is one of the only rooms in the Shatterdome with actual windows leading to the actual outside. He kind of wants to be outside right now, briefly entertaining thoughts of walking right out into the ocean, wandering along the trench floor until he finds the breach, watching kaiju through his own eyes and observing before they get smashed into useless oblivion. He kind of wants to be a kaiju for a bit, just to understand everything he knows he could. He kind of mostly wants a coffee. Is Pentecost still talking? Pentecost has a nice voice. Newt kind of wishes he had a voice like that, one that would make people listen to what he had to say rather than write him off the second he gets a little pitchy. He can't help it; he’s a passionate guy. Sue him. Ah, shit, Pentecost is looking at him. Zone in. Zone in, come on, focus, what's he saying? Something about money? Well that isn't Newt's division, but then he hears the words "non-optional" and "convention" and oh, _fuck_ that, Newt fucking hates the word convention and all the connotations it carries, and _oh_ , he can just imagine what the following weeks will entail, and fuck that. _Fuck that shit_. And Pentecost really expects him to, what, cosy up to government officials, play nice with their smarmy 'experts' who think they know more about kaiju than him? Pentecost has got to be fucking with him.

Newt Geiszler is maybe a little bit of a mess in the morning. Newt Geiszler is also, apparently, neither as quiet nor tactful as he might hope, judging by the horrified stares of the officers who sit around him at the briefing room table.

"No, Geiszler," Pentecost hisses out through gritted teeth, "I am not, as you so delicately phrased it, fucking with you. It is vital that the Jaeger program continues to amass government funding. If we must attend a..." his lip curls around the word, and Newt knows Pentecost hates it as much as he does, "...a convention to prove so, then attend it we shall, and complain we shall not. Do I make myself clear?"

Newt nods, subdued, but Pentecost's eyes continue to burn into him, and _hey, Pentecost is kinda hot_ , but no, _focus_ , and so Newt manages to rasp out a "Yes, Sir," wincing a little at the roughness of his unused morning voice.

Pentecost studies him wearily for a moment more.

"Doctor Geiszler, we are looking to recruit. Please try not to scare off any potential scientists with your... well." He gestures vaguely at Newt, and Newt opens his mouth to protest indignantly, because _hey_ , he can play nice, he can totally play nice, okay maybe he can’t but still - _what is that gesture supposed to imply?!_ \- when Mako catches his eye with a look equal parts placating and warning, and so Newt shuts his mouth, and the relief felt by the entire room is palpable.

Whatever. They want nice? He’ll show them nice.

 

 

Mako catches his arm as they bustle out of the briefing room and holds him back until they trail behind the crowd.

"Why, if it isn't young Miss Mori," Newt exclaims with an exaggerated bow, "fancy catching you on this fine morning!"

"Indeed, Doctor Geiszler," she replies, equally as stiffly, before they both dissolve into snickers, leaning heavily against each other.

"Convention, huh..." Newt sighs, and Mako presses a little firmer into his side in answer. "I suppose you've known for a while?"

"I've known as long as Marshal Pentecost has, which is perhaps not as long as one would expect. You know he doesn't like it any more than you do, Newt, but these sorts of things are an unfortunate necessity. People in power do not trust us; they require firsthand evidence of progress."

"I know. I just...."

"You do not like to play a part. I understand perfectly well Newt, but I daresay you might find someone there who appreciates you as you are."

"And how about you, huh, Maks?" Newt deflects, digging his fingers into Mako's ribs slightly as she twists away, "You might find a drift partner. Not that there would be anyone worthy, of course."

Mako hums lightly in reply, and when Newt looks over there is something of a glint in her eye.

"I've heard there will be a rather... eligible pilot, as it were, Beckett. I believe there are many pilots hoping to find themselves compatible with him. We shall see," she says, scrunching her nose a little in a way that Newt thinks will never cease to make his heart bloom with affection, "In any case. I am not hoping for any such thing. I've heard talk of Beckett before: an unpredictable, reckless man."

"Sounds kind of like someone else you love, huh," Newt says teasingly, and Mako elbows him in retaliation before breaking away abruptly to head to the jaeger bay. It’s how they say goodbye – the absence of it.

 

 

 

 

The following week sees the Shatterdome abuzz with excitement. People seem to be treating the upcoming convention as if it is the hottest social event of the year, and well, with the amount of free time people actually have to do anything other than work these days, Newt really can’t blame them. The one thing he actually is grateful for is the fact that the convention is taking place in Tokyo, where their Shatterdome is based, so they won’t have to hire facilities or hotels. Newt has heard that people are being flown in from all around the world.

Newt has heard a lot of things. Words spread fast when people spent all day every day cramped inside one building, and at the end of the world it seems people are more desperate for meaningless entertainment in the form of gossip than ever. Mako was right; the mysterious Raleigh Beckett has kicked up quite the storm. More importantly, at least in Newt’s opinion, there has been talk of Hermann Gottlieb’s presence. An offhand comment made by some tech or another (Newt really has more important things to remember than names, okay?) that Newt’s brain has honed in on and refused to let go of. It isn’t weird. Hermann is pretty much responsible for his favourite Jaegers, and a couple of years back they had struck up a written correspondence that had fizzled out at some point. So _maybe_ hearing the name unexpectedly has sent him a little manic, and maybe he has cut his fingers with his scalpel seven times since, but it isn’t weird. He stopped writing letters for a reason, but, well, he isn’t going to dwell on that. It’s been almost a year since Hermann’s last letter. He can control himself. _Can you control yourself?_ a voice wonders somewhere in his mind, but he pushes it away with a scoff. Sure he can, he’s Newt Geiszler, a goddamn rockstar. Shoving all thoughts of Hermann somewhere to the back of his brain (where they will no doubt buzz and hum insistently, demanding his attention), Newt does his best to turn his attention back to the slides under the microscope sat before him.


	2. there there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> raleigh beckett appears. Newt sees hermann for the first time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from the song there there by radiohead, because newt's experience in this chapter is lifted directly from 17 year old me, and there there is the song that always played in my head every time i experienced what newt does.  
> like i said, i care so much more about the p&p canon than pr canon so i'm basically throwing most of it out the window. so mako and raleigh r meeting now cause i want them to b bingley and jane

 

In the end, Raleigh is everything he was advertised to be: unpredictable, reckless, and somehow, brilliant. Even as rangers line up to fight with him (under the gist of friendly training, but everyone knows what unpaired pilots are really doing here), even as Mako scoffs as Raleigh lunges a little too far, a little too soon, she feels herself noting his every movement, picturing exactly how she would retaliate, exactly what a conflation of their styles could look like together.

At that point it is clear Raleigh is getting frustrated, rushing through the motions as he continues to fight more out of courtesy than anything. Mako makes a face of clear disapproval just as Raleigh’s eyes catches hers. His mouth drops open slightly, before he raises his chin and stares at her in unspoken challenge. And even as Mako picks up a staff and makes her way over, she feels the beginnings of a magnetism.

 

* * *

 

 

Newt Geiszler is giving a presentation. He’s standing at the front a small lecture room, scientists and government officials with varying degrees of interest filling the plastic seats that look like they were borrowed from a local primary school. He’s talking, and it’s his standard speech on why k-science is so important, peppered with big words about kaiju biology that he’s pretty sure no one understands. It’s a speech he could give in his sleep, and in some ways he feels as if he is sleepwalking. His eyes are moving over the audience, as per standard public speaking rules, but that buzzing box at the back of his brain is scanning for one man in particular. No matter how many times his eyes pass over the audience, nothing sparks, and so Newt lets his eyes glaze over dully even as he forces his mouth to keep moving. He’s kind of tired. Even though he’d had his usual dose of coffee that morning, his muscles ache slightly in the way that can be relieved only by sleep (or, indeed, any form of unconsciousness. Newt is known to have been creative in his methods before).

At the back of the room, a man slips in. His hair is mussed and his cheeks are flushed. He has the build of a ranger, and the way his shoulders heave with each exhalation and his forehead glimmers with the traces of perspiration confirms that hypothesis to be true. Newt idly observes as he glances around for a seat, slinking as inconspicuously as he can into the nearest one. It’s clear from the man’s detached expression that he’s not here to listen to Newt’s talk; rangers rarely cared about the science behind what they did (apart from Mako, of course, and the thought of her produces the usual shot of affection which Newt feels distantly from somewhere far away), and Newt’s guess is that this is the elusive Raleigh Beckett, here to escape the admiring crowds. The smile playing at his lips betrays him somewhat, and the part of Newt that still exists in the present wonders briefly whether he has, after all, found a compatible partner.

It’s an intangible amount of time later and Newt has finished his talk and been herded off the stage. He’s standing in the back corner of the room beside one of the doors, doing his best to avoid interacting with anyone else, when it happens. Just a flash of tweed, a glimpse of an undercut, the outline of a cane in the peripheral of his vision, and world’s centre of gravity shifts in a way imperceptible to everyone but Newt. Newt’s attention, visualised as a wave function, has been collapsed into one sharp spike spanning the wavelength of [Hermann’s leftmost side]-[Hermann’s rightmost side]nm.

This is the first time Newt has seen Hermann Gottlieb in person, and the wavelength of his life collapses.

And then a head passes in front of him, blocking his view, and when it clears, Hermann is no longer a part of it, and Newt feels the ground slip out from underneath him in the same way that he feels his adrenal cortex secrete an outflux of cortisol and adrenaline, and suddenly Newt is four again and reaching out blindly for his mother as she sweeps out the front door, and Newt is ten and his best friend, his _only_ friend, is moving to Europe, and Newt is sixteen and his first girlfriend is breaking up with him and something inside him snaps, and he thinks maybe he’ll end up dead, only he doesn’t, he ends up with a diagnosis and suddenly things slide into place around him and he maybe understands more than he wanted to but less than he needs to and so he pushes and pushes at the boundaries of knowledge and experiments on himself, determined to figure out exactly what makes him tick and what makes him split and what he can do to prevent himself from ever feeling that way again.

It’s for this reason that when Newt finds himself waiting every single morning by the mailboxes on the off chance that Hermann’s written to him, he knows he has let this go too far and he never writes back again. Newt takes control back from his brain just long enough to think _and that clearly worked out, huh?_

For the second time, Newt remembers his gratitude towards Mako, who is maybe the only person in the world Newt’s managed to maintain a normal, healthy relationship with. She understands how he works, and whilst he is deathly protective of her, she is equally as protective of him. Mako takes and gives exactly as much as he does, purposely needling him sometimes to remind him of the grey area that exists between perfection and worthlessness, testing him and pushing him and reminding him of himself, and in return demanding his knowledge and companionship.

Newt needs to clear his head. He slips out of the door and heads to the J-tech side of the building to find Mako.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imma be real with you folks, this is very much just a first draft still under works - i have Big plans for this fic that will probably take me over a year to complete. the only reason i'm posting as i write is for feedback and also bc i need validation so
> 
> do you guys think it gets too intense too quickly? should i build Newt's feelings up slower? genuinely would appreciate any gentle criticism

**Author's Note:**

> newt totally thinks in rambling stream of consciousness style writing, fight me. and i know i use too many commas. i'm a virginia woolf wannabe fight me okay
> 
> as someone w clinically diagnosed aspergers, adhd, depression, anxiety, was considered for bpd, and who projects massively onto newton, it is important that newt has borderline manic disorder and i don't see that explored too much but i'm definitely drawing on my own experiences in how i write newt. (why did he stop writing letters? guess we'll find out)
> 
> next chapter we'll meet herms. poor, stupid proud herms. 
> 
> comments are, as always, everything to me! find me on tumblr at declaredimaginary


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